


Leftover Pieces

by orphan_account



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry, Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26486035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Battler and Beato are playing their usual murder game to pass the time. However, a few unusual pieces have made an appearance this time around.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This work is originally published on AO3 (https://archiveofourown.org). If you happen to somehow be reading this work elsewhere, if you relied on AO3’s download feature to get a local file of this work, or if you disabled Creator's Style, you’ll find some fairly important styling missing from the text. This being an Umineko fanfic, it relies on red/blue truths. To improve accessibility in downloads, all red truths are marked in bold, while all blue truths are marked in italic. To further simplify things, neither italic nor bold are used for emphasis purposes anywhere throughout the text. My AO3 workskin also includes a fancy effect to differentiate players talking in the “metaworld” from the pieces on the game board. Unfortunately, I could not sanely replicate this as accessible formatting, but I have made it clear within the text itself when such switching happens, so hopefully that one last tidbit will remain a non-issue.

“GooooooooooNNnnNnnNAnaaaa fallllLlllLLLLLLLLlllLLLLLLL!!!!!”

Battler’s screams echoed throughout the ship as usual, accompanied by Maria’s parroting of them and Hideyoshi and Jessica’s cheerful laughter. This happened every time, but since Battler went missing for six years, everybody forgot about this… peculiar trait of his. Maria, of course, didn’t remember it at all — the last time she saw Battler wasn’t on the ship, and she was three at the time. Thinking this was some kind of fun way to kill time, she happily screamed along, breaking into laughter regularly.

On the other hand, the situation inside the boat wasn’t quite as pleasant. The Head of the Ushiromiya family has died. The news hasn't reached the kids yet, but the siblings were already in full blast about discussing the division of the inheritance. Eva, Rudolf and Kyrie ranted about some “hidden gold” that Krauss apparently had. Their stances kept changing between “it’s impossible” and “it absolutely must exist without a doubt” seemingly on a whim, which was rather annoying to watch. Rosa remained silent, only sometimes answering questions from the other three with agreement or disagreement.

“Wait, so, he’s just straight up dead now? No mystery about it? No fancy corpses during the twilights?!” Battler shouted in confusion as he looked down onto the world from above. 

Beato cackled in response. “Whaaat? Don’t you get bored of doing things the same way every time? Isn’t it time we changed something up for once, Baaaattleeeeeeeer?”

“If you want to change things up so much, how about not murdering people for once?” No matter how many games they played, it was invariably murder with her. Don’t misunderstand: Battler enjoyed cracking the mysteries and he had fun with it, but it’d be nice to see something else once in a while. Battler sighed. “Oh well, let the game resume. I’m interested to see where this is going.”

“Most certainly.” Beato smiled, and the time in the world below them started flowing again.

The boat arrived on Rokkenjima. Battler took several minutes to catch his breath, with Maria laughing at him all the while and Rudolf badgering him to quit fooling around and get a move on. After the group was greeted by Genji and Gohda, they went upstairs to encounter the usual suspects: Kanon and Jessica, who were for some reason bickering about flat chests, but stopped the moment they saw Battler and the others.

“Yoooo, Battler!” Jessica called out. “Been fuckin forever eh?”

“LANGUAGE!” Battler heard Natsuhi’s loud voice fall from the sky — no, the window of the second floor of the mansion. Jessica pouted in response but said nothing, just waiting for her mother to close the window and leave. Natsuhi, of course, did close the window, ever so paranoid to defend her house against the intrusion of… somebody. Boat thieves? Purple-haired aliens? She wasn’t sure herself, she just knew the window had to be closed.

The cousins spent a while longer outside. Maria found a flower she liked, dubbing it “Sakura” despite the fact that it was clearly a rose, and tied the candy wrapper around it. George kept insisting that “Jirou” was a much better name for the flower, but she refused to listen to him, repeating “Sakura, Sakura, uu-uu!” in a cute voice. Kanon observed the situation with empty eyes, until Battler started talking to him, after which he observed Battler with empty eyes instead for a while.

The siblings, having no choice but to act like everything is okay around the children, relaxed as well. They smelled the flowers of the garden. Eva complained about the garden’s redesign and said Krauss has no taste. Rosa argued that the roses were beautiful, and Natsuhi fumed at the “insults” Eva dared direct toward her husband. In other words, the situation was pretty normal so far.

That only lasted until the mansion’s doors opened. The moment that happened, heavy rain suddenly fell from the sky, with lightning illuminating the figure of the person standing inside. A figure none of them have seen before. A young girl in a pure-white dress with an emotionless look on her face… she looked like a witch — no, a demon! The figure reached her hands for Maria, with everyone else standing there, frozen, unable to say or do anything to stop her…

“OMIGOSH YOU’RE SO ADOWABLE I WANNA TAKE YOU HOME!!!!!”, the figure suddenly exclaimed, leaving everyone with confused and shocked looks on their face. She did, indeed, take Maria home — that is, to the mansion — and let her right back down, playing with her hair. The latter didn’t seem scared at all, uu-uuing and smiling at her assailant. “Wanna take home, wanna take home, uu! Ahaha!”

“Excuse me, but who might you be?” “Who the fuck is this?” — both Battlers asked at about the same time after they managed to regain at least some level of composure. 

“Ah, my apologies. I’m Rena Ryuugu. I was invited here tonight by the master of this house, along with my friends who are already waiting for us inside.”

“Just a few leftover pieces I’ve thrown in from a friend’s game…” Beato explained. This wasn’t the first time some weirdos appeared on the game board all of a sudden, so Battler could do nothing but shrug. Still, a girl this young? Did she borrow her from a slice-of-life game board? Battler was worried about this new piece, but at this point he knew well enough that Beato always knows what she is doing. He hugged her as they looked back down onto the game board.

Pretty much everyone except for Maria, Genji and Kanon stared in shock. The adults were unable to prove that what she was saying was impossible in front of the children, but the children were extremely surprised all by themselves: Kinzo inviting anyone to the island but the family and servants was certainly new. What business did he have with this person and her friends, and what business did she have with him? Such questions raced through everyone’s heads.

Finally, Jessica cleared her throat. “Lezzgo in. The food’s gettin cold.” This got everyone moving again, and Rena smiled as she welcomed the family in. “We’ll give a proper introduction during dinner. I’m sorry to have startled you.” Rena spoke with a voice that was full of joy and had not a single tinge of negativity to it. Kyrie nodded to herself, making a note that she should flip some chess boards when she had the time — an odd hobby, but it made her feel better — and thinking that she must ask Krauss and Natsuhi about these intruders. Battler gulped, still in shock from the scene at the entrance, and braced himself as he was about to open the door.


	2. Introductions

As Battler entered, he held his head. “Oh no, I’m seeing double… This boat is gonna kill me one day, I swear.” George laughed and patted him on his back. “It’s okay Battler, there’s actually two of em.” Hearing that, Battler jolted his head upwards and, after looking around in confusion some more, apologised. “Ah, sorry, sorry. I wasn’t expecting to see twins, I guess?  Knox’s 10th, was it?”

Mion and Shion looked at each other and burst out laughing. “It’s okay, it’s okay! Everyone has this same reaction! Everyone’s like, “Twiiiiiiiins? In my mystery novel?”, well, it’s more likely than you think!”, they declared. As they were saying it, Krauss and Natsuhi entered the dining hall and stared on at the newcomers in just as much confusion as the rest of the adults did. “Uhm, Rudolf-san? Eva-san? Who might these people be?” Natsuhi asked.

Rudolf was about to reply with something along the lines of “well, that’s what I want to ask you two!”, but held himself back as he realised that the guests were right there. So, instead, he prompted Rena to answer. However, Rena was too busy playing with Maria, repeatedly “taking her home” (which is to say, lifting her up and putting her right back on the ground, as Maria’s home was already right here) to notice the request. Kyrie tried to approach her to tap her shoulder, but a giant mackerel fell on her, so she failed to do that.

“Ohohohohoho”, a blonde girl nearby quietly laughed to herself. Nobody seemed to notice. “Allow me to introduce ourselves”, a blue-haired girl who sat near the blonde stood up. “I am Furude Rika.”

“...Seriously?” Battler looked at Beato with a frown. “Furude. Rika. You’re just recycling Erika, aren’t you? What fun is there in that?”

“Ah, no, this is the original… and Erika came later…” Beato nodded understandingly. “The game this piece is taken from came out first. So if you want to link her to Erika, you should think of Erika as the recycled version, especially since **Erika is trash**.”, cackled Beato with Battler laughing alongside her. 

“Well said. Still, what’s with the name?”

“It’s Lady Bernkastel’s piece. She’s awful at coming up with names, so she just rearranges the letters in her own name differently every time. You have yet to meet Miss Creidfear, I presume?”

“Whom?”

“Ah, don’t worry your pretty red head about it.”, Beato said as she kissed Battler. “My point was, Bernkastel is so bad with names that even original pieces from her will always seem recycled. Let’s continue, shall we?”

“Sure.”

“Miss… Furude, is it?”, said Krauss, sitting down at the table. The table itself was mysteriously extended to allow for these guests to have extra seats. Krauss made note of the fact that, going by the family hierarchy, the newcomers were seated at the very end, so at the very least they probably weren’t a threat to the main topic of discussion at hand. Probably. However, the name “Furude” sounded familiar enough to Krauss that it made him worry, but he couldn’t place the reason for it. The other relatives seemed relatively calm at the introduction, at least, so he figured it was just his imagination.

Rena sat down and held Maria on her knees, who was uu-uuing happily. She reintroduced herself for Krauss and Natsuhi’s sake, but didn’t stop hugging Maria even for a second. Rosa was about to comment that this was bad manners and that Maria should be sitting on her own chair, but the moment the thought crossed her mind she caught a chilling, downright murderous glare from Rena looking at her, so she gulped and held back. When she decided not to say anything, Rena’s eyes returned to normal, so she figured it was just her imagination, but didn’t say anything regardless.

“I’m Hojo Satoko.”, said the blonde girl near Rika. Kyrie finally managed to get out from under the fish and was approaching the table. “Ah, Kyrie-san. Watch out!” Kyrie stepped to the right just in time to prevent a cat from falling on her, who ran off and disappeared right away after landing. She was surprised that the girl knew this would happen, and considered the possibility that she planted these animals here in the first place. However, she couldn’t imagine how such a thing could possibly be done, so she figured it was just her imagination.

The boy at the end of the table clapped his hands, then twisted them in a bizarre gesture showing off his middle fingers — a gesture seemingly familiar to the children who giggled at it lightly, but the adults had no idea what it meant. “Maebara Keiichi, yo!”, he proclaimed. “Here to eat food and grope boobs, but food first.” Jessica smiled uncomfortably, while Battler nodded to himself, thinking “this can’t possibly be a bad person.”.

Finally, the green-haired duo introduced themselves. “Sonozaki Mion!”, said the younger twin. “Sonozaki Shion!”, said the older one. They said it at the same time, so their names blended into something like “Shmion”, but it was still clear enough to make out. However, Eva and Krauss both looked extremely nervous. The name Sonozaki is, after all, quite well-known, and both of them have dealt with the family in the past. Mion was the de-facto head of the family at this point, so Eva was even more nervous, but Krauss didn’t recognise the first name. Sweating, Eva asked in a sickeningly sweet voice “Sonozaki? May we be of any assistance to your highly honoured family?”

“Wot?” Mion blinked several times. Her sister punched her shoulder lightly, and she understood this was the opportunity for a wonderful prank, so she continued. “Ah, yes. We came here to take the money you owe us, Mister… Krauss.” She glared in Krauss’ direction, who gulped down. He expected this, of course, but not in his own home…

“Uhm, excuse me, esteemed miss Sonozaki. I’m afraid I cannot come up with the funds right on this spot. Please give me some more time…” Krauss begged Mion, while Shion giggled nearby.

“Man, you owe us fifty bucks. Come on. You could sell this fork you’re eating with for more than that.”

Eva burst out laughing, while Krauss confusedly recreated his chain of creditors in his mind, since he didn’t realise that he had managed to pay the Sonozaki family back almost completely at this point. He sighed, and took the bills out of his pocket. Mion took the money and smiled. “Very well. Our business here is done… Bahahahaha! Shion! Look, I actually got the money out of him!” Shion smiled. “Well done sis!” The two had no idea that Krauss actually owed the family millions, but they also didn’t particularly care.

“Anyways”, Hideyoshi made his presence known, “Rena there said y’all were invited by Kinzo-san. Izzat accurate?”

Rika stared in confusion. “Kinzo? Who’s that? Beato called us here. Nipah~!”


	3. Lunch

“Beato? Nipah?” George stumbled over words that he wasn’t sure were even words, looking on the guests confusedly. Every member of the family had more or less this same look, though for the adults the confusion was intertwined with fear and anger. Natsuhi started to speak: “There is no such person-”, but was interrupted by Gohda carrying in the main course of the meal — some delicious steaks.

Battler, wanting to break the sour mood, noticed the extremely apparent lack of seafood in today’s menu. He chose to ask: “Ah, Gohda-san. I know you’re the new cook here, but I was wondering if Kumasawa baa-chan was still around with the family as well?” Gohda looked on in confusion, and that was enough of an answer for Battler already, but Natsuhi rushed to explain.

“Ah, Kumasawa quit a while ago, Battler-kun. Gohda, and Kanon, the boy you saw downstairs — they were hired as a replacement for her.”

“Oh? How long ago was it?”

“Around… two years ago, I would say?” Krauss interjected. She was in poor health, so it’s no surprise.

“What’s this? Why are pieces being removed now too?” Battler asked.

“There’s just too many of them to work with and this is a boring piece that you can’t do anything useful with. Oh, and since Kinzo is dead, Nanjo has no reason to be there either, so he is gone as well.” Beato shrugged. “So, just to make this fair for you, allow me to reiterate the initial state of the board:  **Ushiromiya Kinzo is dead. Terumasa Nanjo is gone. Kumasawa Chiyo is gone.** The rest of our usual cast — that is to say,  **Ushiromiya Krauss, Ushiromiya Natsuhi, Ushiromiya Jessica, Ushiromiya Eva, Ushiromiya Hideyoshi, Ushiromiya George, Ushiromiya Rudolf, Ushiromiya Kyrie, Ushiromiya Battler, Ushiromiya Rosa, Ushiromiya Maria, Yasuda Sayo, Ronoue Genji,** and  **Toshiro Gohda** — those  **are alive.** For now, that is.” Beatrice cackled loudly. “Oh, and just to be clear,  **you may interpret the words “dead” and “gone” to mean they have no role in this game whatsoever, and are only used to set the scene**.” She took a breath, since speaking in red was straining her voice. “Let’s move on to our newcomers:  **Furude Rika is alive. Ryuugu Rena is alive. Hojo Satoko is alive. Sonozaki Mion and Sonozaki Shion are both alive. Maebara Keiichi is alive.** ”

“Whew, that’s more information than I’ve ever gotten before right at the start!” Battler smiled, but was carefully replaying the reds in his mind to see if anyone’s name was missed. Beato pouted when she noticed this, and decided to add one more: “ **There is no trick to the red truths in this chapter. They are exactly as stated. The names listed above refer to the people you are thinking of, and not to anybody else. I didn’t miss any names** , either.  **There are…** let’s see here… Eighteen… minus four… plus six…  **Gahhh,** why must **math** be so **hard**! Alright, I’ve got it:  **there are exactly twenty living human bodies on this island.** Not much of an increase this way, right?”

“So, we’re playing this fair and square, then. That’s refreshing, thanks!”

“Yup. And no problem.”

“Alright, thanks for letting me know.”, Battler told Krauss and Natsuhi while thinking whether he prefers to deal with fish jokes or cheese jokes, deciding that fish jokes are somehow more appealing. Meanwhile, Gohda has left, and Kyrie chose to address the question that was hanging on everyone’s minds for a while. “Excuse me, but this… “Beato” you speak of, who might that be?”

“Uwu! Bwewatwice!” Maria exclaimed while having her cheeks played with by Rena. After figuring out what those words were, the dining hall fell silent.

“Bea...trice, you say? Is that correct, Miss Furude?”, Rudolf implored. “Yup!” She smiled back. “She wrote us a letter, saying that she’s the head of the family from today on, as the old one has passed away. Nipah!”

The adults deliberated for a moment on how to process this. These girls aside, they needed to do something about the information being thrown out in the open in front of the kids! After exchanging a few glances, Rosa, being the wonderful parent that she is, was the first to act. “D-dead!? What do you mean, dead?!” She decided to lie. Of course she did. None of them ever did anything but lie in their lives, so that was only natural.

“Since when!? Why were we not made aware?!” Rudolf glared at Krauss, playing along with Rosa and mentally begging Krauss to have a good response to this, especially since they all were indeed made aware of the situation the very day it happened.

Krauss was thankful for this, too. “Since yesterday, actually. I couldn’t get the news for you before you all left for this conference, and it was my sincere intention to deliver them upon you after this lunch. I was simply waiting for the right moment…”

Mion and Shion shrugged at this charade, as everyone knew well that Kinzo had actually died two years ago, and anyone who listened to the conversation before closely enough could figure that out as well. But they decided not to intervene. Krauss reached for the sauce bottle to pour some more on his steak out of stress, but the lid fell off and he ended up covered in a disgusting red liquid. “Ohohoho! Be careful, Krauss-san!” Satoko. As expected of her. Rika and Rena smiled.

“Either way… I don’t believe miss Beatrice is with us on the island.” Natsuhi said, bringing the discussion back around. “Do you have any proof that she is the current Head of family? You see, we were not made aware of any such arrangements, either. Did Grandfather leave a will?”

“I dunno!” said Rena. “We’re here just to party, we don’t particularly care about the family status. Oh, but… along with the letter she sent to us, Beatrice did enclose this envelope, and asked us to give it to you. Maria, cutie, could you please read it out loud?”

“Uu! Will read! Will read!”

Rena took out an envelope with an all-too-familiar red seal. “No way”, every adult thought simultaneously, knowing its meaning, meanwhile the kids were wondering which of them is getting invited to Smash.

“Reading! Uu!”

Dear members of the Ushiromiya family. I am the Ushiromiya family alchemist, Beatrice. I am certain this letter will find you by surprise and you will have your doubts about its origins, therefore I shall guarantee you this:  **the letter is genuine, and I am the sole and legitimate successor of the Ushiromiya family headship.** However, please do not let yourself be alarmed by this. I have no interest in any of Kinzo’s vast wealth, nor any other asset of the family that you may have become accustomed to. To prevent any argument, I will also divide the inheritance myself. Everyone will get enough money to pay back whatever debts they may have accrued, and everything past that point shall be divided equally among the rest of the family. I believe that is a way that’s fair to everyone involved. Furthermore, within this envelope, you will find a bank card. This card contains all of Kinzo’s gold, exchanged into Japanese Yen for your convenience. Please divide that equally as well. In exchange for this generous gift, I only require that you take care of my guests during their stay on the island. That is all.

— Beatrice, the Golden


	4. Nighttime

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. The adults were satisfied with the letter as it was clearly genuine — the sentence written in red had an odd effect on everyone in the room that made them instantly accept it. After they got over the freakish whistling noise that came out of Maria’s mouth as she read it, that is. After that, the dinner went on with everyone being happy about the situation. There were no arguments, there were no conflicts, and everyone had fun. 

George was the only person who seemed sad, and he even left the dining hall for a short while. Battler wondered why, and found out that it’s due to Kinzo’s death — no matter how awful Kinzo might have been, George did still have some feelings for his grandfather. Unfortunately for him, neither Battler nor Jessica could sympathise, since Battler has distanced himself from the family greatly for six years and no longer had the capacity to care, and Jessica, having lived on the island for so long, was fed up with Kinzo’s abuse enough to actually be somewhat happy about it. Still, the two consoled him to the best of their ability, and after an hour or so he calmed down. 

None of the adults seemed to care very much. George blamed them for this, saying they were heartless and insensitive. Battler obviously knew this was true, but tried to convince George that they had their reasons, and he accepted that explanation. As for the guests, they were obviously already aware of the situation, and they had no reason to mourn the passing of someone they didn’t even know of, so nobody blamed them for having no reaction to it.

It was now night time. Well, it was actually around 8 PM, but since everyone was tired from the trip and the events of the day, people shuffled around to their bedrooms. The cousins were given a big room, all to themselves together. The guests were given a similarly big separate room to themselves, but they were bored so they got together with the cousins and decided to spend the night playing games.

“First rule of Hinamizawa club! Do whatever it takes to win!” Mion proclaimed.

“Hinamiwhaaa? Club?” Jessica asked curiously “What’s this?”

Satoko piped up. “The Hinamizawa game club is a truly dangerous place! Ohohohoh. We engage in various activities for the purposes of increasing our dopamine levels, and brutal punishment awaits those whose engagement was insufficient!”

“They truly can be brutal”, Keiichi whispered to Battler, “you better be careful, man.”

“In other words, it’s a place that will rip your soul out of you if you aren’t careful!” Rena added. “But… it’s adowable too…”

“You should be prepared, for the greatest challenge of your lives awaits you!” Shion said, doing an old woman impression for some reason, confusing everyone and making them burst out laughing, making them think this isn’t as serious as it sounds.

“Mew… it’s our school club. We play games together.” Rika finally explained it in human words. “Nipah!”

George felt the need to finally ask. “Excuse me, but what exactly is this “nipah” you keep mentioning?”

Rika stared into his eyes for a while, giggled, and then simply said “Tomitake Mk. III”. That left him even more confused, so he looked around at the other club members with puppy eyes begging for an explanation. “It’s just a sound effect she makes. Adowable, isn’t it? Makes you wanna take her home, doesn’t it?” Rena explained the mystery at last.

“I’m not one to kidnap people, personally.” George coughed and made a gesture to fix his glasses. “But I do suppose it’s rather… cute.”

“Very cute!” Jessica confirmed and pat Rika on the head several times. She glanced at Satoko, who seemed… upset? Jealous? Seeing that face, she couldn’t help but pat her head as well, and Shion joined this time. “Ohohohoho”, Satoko smiled underneath the hands of the beautiful women playing with her hair.

“So, what are we playing?” Battler inquired. “We don’t have much here. We have cards, chess and checkers, and I recently bought Super Maria Sisters but over here we don’t have a Fam— what the hell is THAT?!” He screamed, as he watched Shion take out a giant boombox out of her suitcase. She blasted Digital Network at full volume. “Just to set the atmosphere… games are no fun without good BGM.”

“What should the punishment game be?” Keiichi asked. “Since these are outsiders, we should go gentle, right?” Mion nodded in response. “Let’s just have the loser sleep outside, while the rest of us spend the night together.”

“That’s fair, uu!” Maria responded.

“So, if you’re out of the game, you’re out of the room?” Jessica asked. Rena hurried to explain: “No, not right away. We’ll keep a score. The one with the fewest victories at the end will leave.”

“Ah, I see.”

“So, back to Battler’s question, then…” Mion said this while thinking. “If we’ve got cards, that’s just fine with me. Wanna go for… Old Maid? No overcomplicated rules, just the usual thing. Hmmm, we only have a 52-card deck… well, let’s use the king of Diamonds as the Joker.” Everyone nodded. “Alright! Let the games… begin!”


	5. The six chosen by the key

The game night was long. Multiple games were played, including several nobody in the Ushiromiya family has heard of before. In the end, George was the one to lose. Dejectedly, he left the room. Everyone else has collapsed on their beds and yawned tiredly, drifting off to sleep.

This included the Battler in the metaworld, who was exhausted from watching every game in exact detail, trying to be sure not to miss any hints his wife might have planted for him. Said wife laid near him and cuddled up to him closely, also tired from the rather literal game mastering of the day. The two kissed and fell asleep as well. The time on the gameboard would pause to let the two rest as much as they needed, and they could fast-forward through the boring parts. Battler trusted Beato more than enough to know she wouldn’t resume the game without him, so he could rest peacefully. They woke up, had breakfast, and after spending some time together resumed the game.

On the gameboard, Battler was also the first to wake up. He yawned and smiled at the scene before him, the sleeping cousins and their newfound friends. After a while, he went to George’s room. However, George was not there. Battler noticed that Rena woke up and was pacing around the hallway waiting for the rest of her group, so he called out to her and asked whether she had any idea where George was, but she shook her head. They spent some time looking around the guesthouse for him, but couldn’t find him.

They decided to go outside. Battler didn’t want to bother the guests, so he asked Rena if she’d rather stay, but she said she’s bored and that Maria was too “adowable” to wake her up, so she decided to tag along. Outside, they ran into Natsuhi and Eva.

“Ah, Battler-kun. And… Ryuugu-san, too? What an unusual couple!” Eva exclaimed.

“C-couple?? Hauu… Rena isn’t into Battler, but… Rena wants a couple… Hauuu…” Rena mumbled incoherently in response, but it was too quiet to hear, so nobody replied to her. 

“Eva-san, now is not the time for jokes!” Natsuhi shouted angrily. “Ah, Battler-kun, have you happened to see Rudolf or Kyrie-san by any chance?”

“Uh, sorry, nope, we just walked outta the guesthouse. Wouldn’t the old bastard be over at the mansion with all of you, anyway?”

“He fucking should be!” Eva said. “But he decided to walk off somewhere without telling anyone!”

“Huh… ah, what the hell!?” Battler shouted out as they were walking around, looking for Rudolf. He pointed at the storage shed, and the rest of the party screamed out as well. Some creepy seal was painted there with a red paint that was all too reminiscent of blood. “What… What on Earth is this prank!?” Natsuhi asked nobody in particular, and Eva looked on stunned. “Hey, Battler-kun… do you think you could get this door open? The keys for this are normally at the servant’s place, but… This seems urgent.”

Battler nodded and, after some fumbling about, he managed to force the door open. When he did so, what he saw was Kyrie lying on top of Rudolf, hugging him. Further inside, Shannon and George were in a similar pose. Battler was about to turn away, thinking he walked into some strange orgy. “Goddamn dad…”, he thought. 

“There’s no way my George would do something like this in public!” Eva exclaimed, and Battler realised she was right. He wouldn’t put it past his dad, but George doing something of this sort was somewhat unlikely… and the timid, purehearted girl that is Shannon? There’s just no way.

While they were thinking, Rena walked up to Shannon and shook her shoulder. “Hey, hey, wake up! Ah!?”

Suddenly, Shannon… fell apart. She fell apart into tiny, tiny little cubes of identical size. George, underneath her, started falling into pieces like this as well. “Hweh!!!?? What did Rena do!? What did Rena do!? This isn’t my fault, this isn’t my fault!!!” she shouted out. For Battler, Eva, and especially Natsuhi, it took a while to process what they just saw. But when they did, they screamed in terror. Someone — some twisted bastard — has cut up their bodies into small pieces, and rearranged them back into their original form!

“Who the hell is capable of this!?” Natsuhi exclaimed. “This isn’t the work of a human! This is done by a demon! A demon!”

“This isn’t Rena’s fault! Not Rena… not… Rena!!!” cried the poor girl. She wasn’t thinking straight, but then who the hell was in this situation!?

Eva went on to touch Kyrie and Rudolf. She did it carefully. She already knew what to expect, and she was proven right, so instead of screaming out again, she just sobbed.

Battler… noted something — someone — else in the back. Tears still covering his cheeks, he went further inside. He noticed Kanon, and further in, Gohda. He called out to Natsuhi and Eva to inform them. Natsuhi screamed out again, but Eva was no longer surprised. “Anyone else?”, she asked through her tears. Battler shook his head. “I’ll find the bastard who did this”, he swore, “and kill him!”

Eva, regaining her composure, sighed and said. “This is a crime scene. We mustn’t disturb it any further… Come, Battler-kun, Natsuhi-san. Ryuugu-san.”

Natsuhi left the shed. After a while, so did Battler. Rena was still staring down in shock at the bodies, repeating “it wasn’t Rena, it wasn’t Rena…”. Battler had no choice but to forcefully drag her outside by her hand.


	6. First twilight

Battler stared down at this and whistled at how cruel and bizarre the crime scene was. He didn’t care anymore, though — just like Beato, at this point, for him, this was just a game. Perhaps “didn’t care” isn’t even the right way to put it. It was more like he admired his wife’s handiwork down on the board.

“Alright. Before you show me the discussion on the board itself, let’s get the basics out of the way, alright?”

“Sure.”

“Is there any chance that  _ these cubes aren’t actually part of their bodies, and are something else entirely, just painted to look like my dad and the others? _ ”

“No.  **These truly are bodies cut into pieces.** ”

“I don’t like how you phrased that… bodies cut into pieces? Could they be  _ someone else’s bodies_, then?”

“No.  **They are who they appear to be.** Come on, Battler. I’m better than this.”

“You are. Sorry. Just need to check. And, you’re gonna be mad at me because this is really fucking stupid, but what if  _ they aren’t actually dead?_”

Beato pouted, because it was fucking stupid, just like Battler has said. However, she commended him in her mind on at least realising the stupidity of the question given the circumstances. “Sorry, Battler.  **They are dead.** I’ll go further, knowing you:  **they were murdered.** Is that good enough for you?”

“Yeah, thanks. Alright, I think I’ll switch to watching for now.”

“Sure. Enjoy the show.”

Down on the board, the rest of the family gathered together. Eva was the one to deliver the news. “No way!”, “What the hell?!”, everyone exclaimed. The guests were also gathered there, feeling extremely uncomfortable from all of this. Mion and Shion felt suspicious glances on them, so those two were especially stressed. Shion was hugging Satoko who was in tears, and Rena was cuddling Maria (who was, on the inverse, strangely calm). Rika was howling in despair along with everyone else, asking “why did this have to happen? Everything was going so well…”. Keiichi and Battler were angry and pounded the walls.

Finally, Eva shouted at Mion. “You! You did this! You mafia slut!”

“Huuuh!?” Mion exclaimed. “Shut up! Why the hell would I murder someone!? Mafia or not, I’m not a murderer!”

“My dear sister wouldn’t dirty her own hands. Of course, that applies to me as well. We have others take care of things like this for us.” Shion exclaimed, calmly but with a cold and angry voice. “We do not murder.”

“So we’re just supposed to trust you, then!” Natsuhi shouted. “You’re criminals! CRIMINALS! Why would we trust anything you say?”

Jessica defended Mion. “Mom! Mion’s a good girl! Her family ties don’t determine who she is as a person!”

“Yes, they do!” Eva kept going. “No worthwhile person can come from a worthless family of criminal scum!”

“Now, now, Eva-san…”, Hideyoshi calmed her down. “Let’s not say things like this.”

“But she…!”

Krauss coughed and said “Eva is right. Existing criminals are definitely suspicious. However, surely, we can’t incriminate them on that ground alone. After all, I myself…” He trailed off.

“My friends are good people.” Satoko argued. “Don’t you dare insult them.” Rena joined her. Rika said “Mew… everyone’s so stressed. Please, relax…”

“How can we relax?!” Rosa piped up. “There was a murder! A murder!”

“Ahh, it’s no good.” Battler said with a smile, having figured it out. At the same time, Keiichi got up and agreed with him. “Yeah. This is no good at all.”

“No… good?” Eva stared in confusion.

“Yeah. Aunt Eva… you know Mion and Shion are part of some criminal gang, it seems. I don’t know the details, but it’d be just weird if someone who’s a known criminal would commit a murder! All the suspicion would fall onto them! Therefore —” Battler took out a portable chessboard and flipped it upside down in his hand several times “— they couldn’t possibly have done it!”

“What kind of twisted logic is this?”

Keiichi added onto what Battler said. “The Sonozaki family are not soulless and heartless criminals either. Isn’t that right, Mion? You wouldn’t just kill for your own benefit, right?” Mion confirmed by nodding. Rika smiled at Keiichi and cheered him on. “Fight, on! Nipah!”

“Besides, what motive is there?” Battler asked. “Money, obviously, right? They want that card with the millions? Is that what you are going to say, Aunt Eva?” Eva nodded. “Well, did you all forget just who brought that card to you? They could have taken it without having ever made it onto the island.”

“But, Battler!” Rosa stumbled over her words. “It was — they were — the card I mean, it was in a sealed envelope, right? Could they have really known?”

“That just helps our point!” Keiichi shouted back. “Look, we’re honest people. We didn’t go digging inside your letters to get the card out. And ya know what, this bit of plastic is fairly easy to feel through the envelope! I’m sure Rena knew it was there!”

“Maybe they changed their minds realising how much money is on it!” Hideyoshi said. “Or maybe Rena knew, but these Sonozaki sisters did not!”

Suddenly, young Rika spoke up. “Even assuming that is true, why would we go for Rudolf-san and Kyrie-san? Krauss has the card, isn’t that right?”

“How did you know!?” Rosa exploded.

“It’s easy, though. He’s the head of the family. Of course the card would be with him. Ohohohohoh…”, Satoko explained.

“This is just back to my point!” Hideyoshi snarled. “We don’t know how much information y’all’re sharing! What if the sisters didn’t know this?!”

“We’re not stupid, you know…” Shion said.

“Alright, then.” Rika added on. “Why George? Why the servants? George wasn’t in the mansion. He was in the guesthouse with the rest of us. There was no point in killing him.”

“I don’t know!” Eva screamed out. “They’re murderers! Who knows what goes through their minds! Maybe George happened to be in the mansion at the time and was in the way! Oh, and the servants? You needed the key to the shed, didn’t you!?”

“Aunt Eva…”, Battler sighed. “Your accusation is clear. Give it a rest. You have no proof, right? No factual evidence that any of these girls did it?”

“Well, I suppose not…”

“Furthermore…” He flipped his chessboard again. “If we’re looking at a financial motive, doesn’t everyone in the family have something of a benefit?”

“W-what are you saying, Battler-kun!?” Jessica exclaimed.

“Calm down, Jessie. I’m just trying to shut Eva up.” He whispered and Jessica nodded in response.

“As I was saying… Anyone in the family right now stands to benefit from other people dying. The money was to be split equally, yeah? So… less people, more money. The letter did say “the rest of the family”, so George is included in this.”

“Well… what about the servants, then? They aren’t, right?” Eva stumbled, realising Battler has a point.

“Your theory for those works just fine, Eva-san.” Keiichi claimed. “But… it didn’t have to be Mion to do those things to them, you know?”

Battler nodded. “It’s exactly as Keiichi says. Now, Aunt Eva, I’m not saying you or anyone in the family did this. I can’t see anyone here being desperate enough for money, and I definitely can’t see you wanting to kill George. I’m just saying that this is another possibility we simply must consider.”

Eva and the rest of the adults finally quieted down and collapsed onto their chairs. Shion and Mion smiled at Keiichi and gave Battler a thumbs up. It seemed like they were safe at least for now.

“My apologies. I fell into the anger of the situation.” Natsuhi coughed. “Would you like something to eat? I know Gohda is gone, but I should be able to ask Genji-san to come up with something.”

“That would be nice.” Eva replied. Everyone nodded in agreement.


	7. The two who are close

After arguing a bit more, the family and the guests failed to come to a satisfying conclusion. The culprit remained a mystery for now, and everyone was extremely nervous and conscious of this fact. They ate the food that Genji has made for them. It was, as a matter of fact, rather delicious, but they couldn’t feel the taste as their nervous system was too busy interpreting any small change of sight or sound to protect themselves. In the end, it was decided that it’s best if everyone stays in the mansion. Eva wanted to force the guests back into the guesthouse, but Natsuhi was kind enough to allow them to stay in a separate room inside the mansion. Feeling defeated and depressed, the guests went into their rooms. The adults eventually locked themselves up in separate rooms with their families: Jessica, Natsuhi and Krauss took one room, Rosa and Maria took another, and Hideyoshi and Eva took a third. Battler was pacing around the hallways, unsatisfied with the day’s results and thinking of better ways to defend their guests from the attacks of Eva, Hideyoshi and Rosa.

“Sooooo? Any suspicions yet, Battleeeer?” Beatrice cackled.

“Huh, wha? Already? Not quite yet, sorry. Obviously the guests are suspicious, but it’d be too simple to blame an external source, so I am going to assume that  _ the culprit is not one of our guests. _ I know asking you to confirm that is too much, so I won’t.”

“Mm, well, if you say so?”

“Wait, you’d confirm it for me!?”

“Not anymore I won’t. Ahahah.”

“Damn… anyway, out of the main cast, Genji is perhaps the most suspicious, what with him having access to the servant’s keys and master keys and all that. Once again, this seems too simple. It would also be out of character for Genji to act so directly.”

“So, in other words…  **you have no idea** , do you?” Beato giggled.

“Yeah. Well, it’s whatever anyway, it’s easier to wait till the number is small before I start theorising, especially since fake corpses have been ruled out. Still, Aunt Eva and Aunt Natsuhi were outside before me.  _ They could have also done it. _ Would explain why they’re so keen on accusing someone else. They also stand a lot to gain, as “I” already explained on the gameboard.”

“Fair enough then. Let’s resume. Or would you like another break?”

“Yeah, no, let’s go. I want to move the game further along.”

At last, Battler settled on the room that was the closest to the room taken by the guests and fell asleep. He would soon regret his choice, since he’d be the first to wake up to Mion’s ear-piercing scream and run out to the guest room.

“What, what, what happened!?” Battler stumbled, half-awake. He gazed at the teary-eyed faces of Mion, Rika and Rena, as well as Keiichi’s angry glare. They were staring down onto a bed that was shared by Shion and Satoko. Just what did they see there? Battler gazed down, sleepily. Shion and Satoko were hugging each other and sleeping peacefully, so what was everyone being so noisy about? Wait… the heights of their bodies don’t… match up?

“Aaaaaaaaaaaarrgghhhh!!!” Battler finally screamed out when he realised what he was looking at. At the top, lay Satoko — or maybe it was Shion — how could you even tell at this point!? It’s impossible to tell who was who anymore! The girl laying at the top had the left half of Satoko’s body combined with the right half of Shion’s. And the girl hugging her from underneath was the opposite. Their bodies were cut in half and sewn back together in such a twisted way. The seam was barely visible at first, but it was there, the proof of the murderer’s twisted actions, it was right there!

“How… how is this possible, I wonder?” Rena said. “It was only us in this room… right?”

“It was.” Rika confirmed. “Obviously, we didn’t do it though.”

Rena nodded. Mion interjected: “Obviously!”

Keiichi has looked around and confirmed this. “We don’t have any sewing equipment in the room!”

“Guys, guys, guys. Stop.” Battler tried to calm them down. “I do not suspect any of you. Please, save your defenses for later… Yours is a good one, Keiichi-kun. I’ll be sure to shove it in everyone’s face!”

“Thank you…”, cried Mion. “Why did this have to happen… why?”

“That is something we are going to find out!” Keiichi exclaimed. “I swear, I will find the bastard who did this, and kill him!” Battler nodded. Didn’t he say something similar just yesterday? And look at what came of it…

Finally, the other members of the family came around. Their screams were loud, especially Jessica’s. “What on Earth!? Shion!? Noo!!!! Why would… how would…”

Everyone cried for a while. Rena and Mion were howling particularly loudly. Keiichi and Battler walked around angrily in thought. Rika stood in the corner, but she was clearly thinking as well. Eventually, Krauss announced that they must all gather and discuss the situation. They went to the dining hall yet again, none of them particularly sure if they could stomach any food at all after what they’ve just seen… 

“On the second twilight… tear apart the two who are close…”, Battler mumbled to himself in thought. “Interesting. Very interesting.”


	8. Second twilight

“Ahem. I believe we must apologise, first and foremost. I understand you will think this insincere, but it’s the least we could do for you, right now.” Krauss uttered. Rika thanked him, but most of the other guests remained sobbing. Keiichi gave a small nod.

“I agree. I, too, am sorry for doubting you so much. And… my condolences on your losses.” Natsuhi seconded. Rika made a “meep” noise this time. Nobody else had the energy to respond any more than that. Jessica joined up with the two surprisingly sensible adults. “I’ve said from the very beginning that they are innocent, but I’ll say it again. I stand by my point, y’hear?”

Mion suddenly spoke up. “Can I… go, please? If I’m on my own, I’m not killing anyone even if I am guilty, right? I need time to recover from this…” Keiichi nodded. “As long as everyone else is in this dining room, it will be safe. Once we get out, I’ll immediately head your way. Where will you be?”

“Just… somewhere alone. The hallway outside the dining hall will do fine.”

“Alright. That works well. Please rest, Mion.”

“The rest of us will stay.” Rena said, while playing with Maria’s hair, though without her usual smile — she just needed this right now to relax. “I think it’s unfair for all of us to leave. First, you…” — she suddenly glared at Eva, even though she was addressing the family as a whole — “...might blame us behind our backs and conspire to get rid of us somehow.” Eva froze, as she was intending to do pretty much that. “But, secondly, a murder has occurred in your family as well. Since both of our groups are affected, it’s only fair that we should collaborate. Let great detective Rena help!”

“Meep…”, Rika seemed mildly upset at that last phrase for some reason.

“First off, the door to their room, it was locked, right?” Battler posed the question to Beato.

“ **Of course.** **It was locked when they went to sleep last night, and it was unlocked by Rena in the morning, after she woke up but before she looked at the corpse.** ”

“And the keys…?”

“ **The individual room keys were inside the room.** In regards to other keys, **anyone may possess up to a total of 3 master keys, recovered from Kanon, Shannon and Gohda.** ”

On the gameboard, Battler shook his head. “Who has the master keys?”

“What is this about, Battler-kun?” Rosa asked.

“The servants carry master keys that can open any room. But most of them are dead now. Genji still has his, of course, but… just checking, did anyone take keys from the bodies of Shannon, Kanon or Gohda?”

“If I need to check the body for them, I can.” Rika suddenly said. “Errr, it’s probably best if I do that instead, Rika-chan.” said Keiichi. “Nipah. Sure.”

After that statement, Eva and Natsuhi confessed. “We did take a key each before leaving. Well, actually, Natsuhi-san did. I didn’t even think of that…” Eva said, with a look of shame on her face. “She has two keys herself. We didn’t think it necessary to distribute them.”

“So, this limits the number of possible culprits. That any help?” Beato asked.

“Wait.  _ The culprit needn’t possess the key themselves.  _ As long as someone is willing to open the door for them, they could walk in and out freely, right? Also, at this point,  _ Natsuhi could easily give the key to someone without Eva knowing. _ ”

“Oh, huh. I suppose so. You’ve gotten better at this.”

“Only thanks to you.” Battler smiled. “Anyway, here’s my current theory. I’m not ready to name the whodunit just yet, but I think I have a howdunit in my mind.”

“Oh? Now that is an unusual order of operation. Let’s hear it.”

“Well, for starters, I don’t find it unlikely that Shion and Satoko both left the room together at some point. So, when they left,  _ the culprit knocked them out  _ and then proceeded to murder them, so there were no screams anyone could hear. It’s also possible they didn’t leave the room. This is somewhat less likely, but  _ the culprit could just as easily knock them out inside the room, then drag them out to do the murder and put them back.  _ This would still make some noise, but it’d be easier to actually pull off as they would be asleep. Obviously,  _ in the second case, the culprit had a master key, or was working together with someone who did. _ ”

“Okay, that second one? **You’re being ridiculous.** But fair enough for the first one, there was no guarantee the two would stay in the room the whole night. Until now! **None of the guests left the room from the moment they entered it until the moment they were invited out by Krauss to the dining hall. Of course, such an event only occurred once, and you witnessed its sole instance.** In other words, Krauss didn’t invite them out to the dining hall at night while everyone else was asleep. Oh, and one more thing. **Neither Shion nor Satoko had their state of consciousness altered by external means.** To put it simply, they were not “knocked out”. This also includes drugs that would render them fully unconscious. Oh, I’ll go a bit further, actually! **They were alive and awake right before the moment they were split in half. They could see their murderer with their own eyes.** Hoooooooooooooow’s thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”

“Huh!? What!? Okay, now I’m lost again… Unless I suspect the rest of their group, but I don’t want to do that. Well done, well fucking done, Beato. Uh… let’s keep going for now. I’ll have to think more.”

“Sure thing! The more you think, the more you get lost anyway!” Beato cackled in response.

“Eva-san. Natsuhi-san. I’m sorry to say this, but you two are the most suspicious people here.” Rena proclaimed and Rika nodded. “Do you have alibis?”

“I can speak for Eva! She was with me the whole time!” Hideyoshi exclaimed.

“I can speak for my mum. And I’m sure Dad can, too.” Jessica said, calmly. Krauss nodded.

“Thank you, Jessica-chan. I trust you. You’re adowable.” Rena smiled, and Jessica smiled back. “However, I don’t trust you, Mr. McDonalds. You are alone, and Eva-san is your wife. You could easily be collaborators. Can anyone confirm your alibi?”

“How dare you!” Eva shouted at the top of her voice. “You likely just offed those two to stop yourself from looking suspicious!”

Rena glared. She was about to actually murder Eva, but Keiichi stopped her by bringing up the point of sewing equipment, and Battler confirmed that he heard no noise until the morning coming from the room nearby. “However, I wouldn’t hear anything that was too quiet. The walls are pretty thick, after all.” he added.

“Well, obviously, if you couldn’t hear anything, nobody else could. What proof can I possibly give?”

“We cannot ask you to prove your innocence here and now, Eva-san. We understand it is impossible.” Rika said. “However… just in case, nobody did hear anything, right?”

Everyone nodded.

Rika sighed. “Okay, look. I can see a reason for Eva to kill Mion or even Shion. But, Satoko? And this brutally, too? Meep… doesn’t that seem unlikely?”

“Yes, yes, what she said! That thing!” Eva shouted, eager to jump at any defence offered to her.

Rena said “Well, I guess that’s true… I wonder…”. She stopped questioning Eva. She wouldn’t get anywhere anymore.

Suddenly, Rosa stood up. 

“I figured it out! I know… I know who the murderer is!”


	9. The noble name

“She did it! It’s her! She’s the murderer!” Rosa screamed, pointing at the big portrait of Beatrice in the hallway, where she arrived after dragging everyone out from the dining hall. Mion was forced to come along as well, despite her protests.

“Huh? What are you talking about, stupid Rosa!?” Eva flared up.

“I understand what she’s saying.” Rena chimed in. “There is somebody else on this island along with us, doing the murders.”

“But the letter…” Rika started speaking. “Ah, I guess I see your implication: the letter was a distraction. Have everyone go to sleep calm and peaceful, and then sneak out and kill people, right?”

“Yeah! Exactly!” Rosa added. “Also, here, look!”

Everyone looked over to where Rosa was pointing. It was the plate with the strange epitaph poem. “Hey… this makes sense… we’ve got six victims the first time, right? I wasn’t there, but I sure was for the second one, and we had two. And now, for the third twilight… “praise my name”? What the fuck?” Mion read over it carefully.

Rena shook her head. “I do not believe Beatrice herself is likely to do this. I know her. She’s not that kind of person.”

“Shut up! It’s right here, you see!” Rosa exploded.

“Yes, I see. I understand that these are nursery rhyme murders. However, I believe that suspecting another person on the island — a person that should not exist here and has no reason to kill anyone — is somewhat absurd basing it on just that. Instead, we should assume that someone else has taken a liking to this epitaph and is committing murder based on it.”

“Pachipachipachi!” Rika clapped.

“This does make sense…” Krauss said, scratching his chin.

“So… we’re back to square one, then?” Natsuhi held her head.

Silence hanged for a while — an oppressive, eerie and sad silence. Battler was the one to break it. “No, Aunt Natsuhi. Not necessarily.”

“W… what do you mean?”

Battler took out his chessboard again, flipping it rapidly over and over. “Well, for starters. I think this kind of motive completely clears our guests of suspicion, wouldn’t you say?”

“H… hold on, Battler. You… might need to explain this better.” Hideyoshi said. “You’re not making much sense right now.”

“Really? Wow, okay.” Battler sighed, as if it was obvious and a waste of time. Time was indeed of the essence, so nobody bothered to correct him on his rudeness. “The nature of the epitaph. What is it again?”

“Ah… I believe that Father has installed this here as a sort of hint towards the location of the hidden gold.” Krauss explained. “If Ryuugu-san is correct, that’s all it ever was supposed to be, and it’s now being twisted into actual murders. It is, admittedly, easy to twist, though.”

“Very twisty!” Rika giggled. This cheered everyone up a bit, and Battler continued explaining.

“Right. This epitaph was installed here by Grandpa. In other words, its meaning or existence should not be known to anyone. Furthermore, our guests had no chance to lay their eyes upon it until now.”

“Well, they could-”

“Let me finish, Aunt Eva. Even if, by some chance, they knew about the epitaph in advance, they had no reason whatsoever to plan to kill two of their own ahead of time. You theorized that they did it just to lower the suspicion. The idea being completely fucked up aside, this kind of motive matching up with the epitaph is just straight up impossible!”

“O… oh, I see!” Hideyoshi exclaimed.

“Additionally… and I hate to go into this territory, but I think the epitaph further limits likely culprits even within our family.”

“Oh? Now this is interesting, let me hear it!” Rena’s eyes shined as she observed Battler’s thread of logic.

“Well… the thing’s fucking long, you see. Remembering it exactly, even if you throw out the first part about the river and whatever, is difficult. Nobody had the time to copy it down since we arrived on the island. In other words, the culprit had to be someone with the ability to either memorize or write down the epitaph in advance. Ah, but there’s no way to prove this, okay? I’m just talking about probabilities here.”

Every one of the family nodded intently. Rika and Rena cheered on Battler, Keiichi listened intently and smirked, happy with what this guy was doing, and Mion looked on in respect and admiration at the person protecting her and her friends.

“So, then, who would have a reason to study the epitaph? I know full well Maria did, because she’s into this shit, but she couldn’t possibly kill anyone.”

“Uu… Maria killed a goomba once… uu.” She grumbled about something, thinking she was being told off, while Rena patted her head to calm her down.

“Outside of her, none of us cousins except Jessica — I’m sorry — had any opportunity for it, and Jessica herself had no reason. George was gone for a year, I was gone for six… ya know. Now… Aunt Rosa, Aunt Eva, Uncle Krauss, Hideyoshi-san and Aunt Natsuhi. You all had a perfectly sensible reason to study this epitaph day and night — trying to solve the puzzle.”

“We may have attempted it a few times…” Krauss nodded. “I’d never touch the cursed thing if I knew it was going to lead to these kinds of accusations being thrown around!” Natsuhi screamed.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Natsuhi. I don’t mean to suspect you.”

“However, just by the presence of this epitaph, this level of reasoning is possible for Ushiromiya Battler! Nipah!” Rika said in the background.

“Allow me to take this slightly further, if I may.” Rena said. “Krauss and Natsuhi, you two specifically had access to the epitaph every day of your lives for the last few years, correct?”

“Yes, but!!!”

“That makes you two the most likely to know the epitaph. It says nothing about you being the most likely to commit a murder, though.”

Everyone sighed. Battler’s argument was by no means soundproof, but it was extremely convincing. The people he managed to clear, especially the guests, were thankful to him. Out of the adults, Rosa and Natsuhi were the two who were upset. The rest have already had some level of suspicion that one of the other adults did it in the first place, so they managed to remain somewhat calm.

“Thank you, Battler-kun.” Mion said to Battler.

“Your thoughts are appreciated. We should take them into account.” Krauss said. The rest of the adults just nodded along. Jessica was staring holes into Eva, and George was deep in thought. Maria was just uu-uuing as usual.

Keiichi gave Battler a thumbs up. Rena and Rika both praised his detective work, with Rika giving him a roll of duct tape she picked up nearby as a “trophy”. He thought it was cute and accepted it.

“Shall we go back to the dining hall, then?” George prompted. Everyone agreed and followed him out of the hall, with Rosa shooting one last glare in the direction of the portrait before she left.


	10. Gouge and kill

Having returned to the hall, the family collapsed onto their chairs. This was not a particularly convenient location to spend time in — dinner was long over and the chairs weren’t exactly the most comfortable — however, as a location where everyone could easily gather and that was largely disconnected from the rest of the mansion, with just a single entrance that could be barricaded easily, it was, at the very least, secure. Still, the stiff posture combined with tiredness, stress and lack of food didn’t do anyone any good.

Meanwhile, Battler and Beato were sitting on a comfortable sofa, cuddling closely together and looking down at the situation from the above. “Look at all these losers”, Beato said, cackling. 

“Yeah. Maybe they should come join the fun up here.”

“No, no, it’s quite fine with just the two of us. It’s more intimate this way.” Beato blushed, and Battler smiled.

“If you say so.”

Fed up with the stressful atmosphere, Rena started playing with Maria again, and, having nothing better to do, Jessica and even Mion herself joined in. They were teaching her how to play mahjong. Rosa wasn’t sure what to make of this, but decided to let this go, simply because she had no energy left to object.

Keiichi and Battler were discussing something among themselves. Natsuhi tried to listen, but realising the discussion consisted of nothing but boobs, turned away in shame. Eva, on the other hand, seemed curious for a short while, but her curiosity didn’t last particularly long either. She instead chose to turn and hug Hideyoshi, who held her close and warm, and she felt safe. She had admitted her guilt with trying to blame everyone for what was happening, though, so far, only to herself — but she was feeling truly desperate right now.

Rika sat by herself, drawing some sort of charts or diagrams, or perhaps an abstract art piece: multiple lines connecting to each other and splitting apart over and over. Now and again, she would sigh, throw what she just drew away, and start over completely, with slight changes here and there. Krauss asked what she was doing because it looked extremely intellectual, but she only replied with “meep”, and kept drawing.

The conversation among the group never restarted. However, the hunger and lack of space were causing more and more stress, so eventually, Hideyoshi and Eva volunteered to go out to get food. They understood the risk and asked if anyone would join them. Rosa, and, somewhat reluctantly, Natsuhi, agreed. Genji was ordered to follow along as well. Rena voiced her concerns along with Keiichi, but everyone else agreed that five people at once would have been too much to take on, especially when they are wide awake, aware and warned.

It didn’t take long for Rena’s concern to overpower the room after the group left, though. It took all but five minutes for them to realise they’ve done something wrong, and they left together for the kitchen. Oddly, they found no one there. Rika mentioned that there might be a dry storage area that could potentially keep some extra food, but the remaining family members assured her that no such thing existed. Battler went to check out the big freezer, and let out a scream soon after opening it.

“Again, huh…” Rika sighed. “I want this sick joke to be over already…”

Rena has patted her head in pity, and then everyone moved on to see who died.

“Mother! No!!! Why!?” Jessica screamed out, along with Krauss.

“Kihihihihi… Oh, Mama’s here.” Maria said, unperturbed as usual.

“Hideyoshi-san…” Mion sighed along with Keiichi.

Eva was also there, but nobody gave a particularly strong reaction about her, since everyone was fed up with her at this point. Battler was standing by her body, but he wasn’t crying. His expression was that of surprise instead.

“So… it doesn’t have to be one-by-one, huh.”


End file.
